US Navy Faces $600M Lawsuit For Allegedly Pirating 3D VR Software (hothardware.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from HotHardware: The U.S. Navy has been accused of pirating 3D software after first testing a software package offered by Germany company Bitmanagement Software GmbH. The company is suing the United States of America for nearly $600 million. HotHardware reports: "According to the court filing, Bitmanagement licensed its BS Contact Geo software for use on 38 Navy computers from 2011 to 2012. This limited rollout was 'for the purposes of testing, trial runs, and integration into Navy systems.' While this test period was underway, the Navy reportedly began negotiating to license the software for use on thousands of additional computers. However, even as the negotiations were ongoing, the Navy decided to go ahead and initiate its full-scale rollout without actually paying for the software. In total, the initial 38 computers allegedly swelled to 104,922 computers by October 2013. As of today, BS Contact GEO is claimed to be installed on 558,466 Navy computers, although 'likely this unauthorized copying has taken place on an even larger scale' according to the filing. As if the unauthorized installation of software onto hundreds of thousands of computers wasn't enough, Bitmanagement is alleging that the Navy during 2014 began disabling the Flexwrap software that is tasked with tracking the use of BS Contact Geo and helping to prevent it from being duplicated. When this software piracy was taking place, the retail price of a single BS Contact Geo license was $1067.76. With nearly 600,000 computers now in play, Bitmanagement is seeking a whopping $596,308,103 in damages. The lawsuit, which alleges willful copyright infringement was filed on July 15th."

Comments

Small potatoes

[mrchaotica]

Given that the maximum penalty for copyright infringement in the US is $150,000 per instance, the Navy is about to be fined $83.7 trillion!

Re:Small potatoes

[jcochran]

Nope. It's not $150,000 per instance, it's $150,000 per "infringed work". So if Bitmanagement Software were to go the statutory damages route, they could only sue for a maximum of $150,000 since only one work was infringed upon. What they're doing is going for actual damages (the license fee for each copy of their program) and since the fee is about $1,000 per copy and they're talking about 500,000 copies, that's quite a bit of money.

Not Oculus "VR", Google Earth "VR"

[im_thatoneguy]

http://www.bitmanagement.com/p...

Looks like a google earth/GIS type application for loading terrain and city data. It's not a stereo head tracked 360 "VR" application.

Wait a minute

[wcrowe]

600,000 computers? How big do they think the U.S. Navy is anyway? That's almost two computers for every active duty service member. That's over 2,000 computers per ship. I'm not saying the Navy didn't steal their software, I have no clue about that. I'm just saying that 600,000 installs is A LOT for such an obscure piece of software.

Re:Wait a minute

[I4ko]

It's probably somewhere in a SCCM and for whatever reason they count each start of the installer as a new instance. It is not uncommon to reimage less trusted machined each night, if not after each user uses them. - Deploy image, push all software via SCCM, done.

Re:Amex

[D00MSlayer]

Well, shit. Do you guys take American Express?

Our card number is 3000-0000-0000-0001, expires 10/1971, zip is 20006.

The CVV is 000.

More appropriately for AmEx: Card number 3000-000-00000-001 CVV is 0000

Fishy case

[HBI]

arf arf. But seriously, almost 600,000 copies of a piece of software when the Department of the Navy has fewer official user workstations than that...much fewer. That's Army level of personnel, not Navy.

Then, there's some data online about the system in question. Seems like it's a system to support infrastructure for Navy bases and such. Seems like Northrop Grumman is involved, as well as some smaller contractors. Like this one, Synergy Software Design, with the terrible web site. Also appears that Synergy is the sole vendor and technical support provider for Bitmanagement Software GmbH in the US.

The conclusion I come to is that Synergy fucked over Bitmanagement somehow, and the Navy is being held in.

Re:Fishy case

[HBI]

OK, I know this business, and I can tell you that the contractors supporting the system are doing so with minimum personnel, so that can't be it. Maximum of 500 people involved in dev and support, and probably less. The system itself is not useful to a general purpose user. Let's assume 50,000 people ever touch it, that's probably a generous estimate. I imagine if we saw their usage data, it would be in the four figures, not six.

Re:Fishy case

[DRJlaw]

Yes, in these situations, I am this much of a douche.

If you'd bothered to read the complaint, Bitmanagement cites a specific email sent on a specific date by a specific NAVFAC employee with a specific document allegedly planning for deployment of the software onto a specific number of computers.

Your first post in this chain demonstrates that you are not familiar with the Navy program, not familiar with the contractor(s) involved, and for some reason assume that contractors would only include software technical support rather than, say, the engineering services, construction services, and other services that would be incolved in assessing and repairing all that infrastructure.

Then you double down and announce "OK, I know this business," which you clearly do not, and pull some numbers out of your nether regions that we should totally trust. You know better than the plantiff, who merely developed the software and was negotiating the agreement with the Navy. You also know better than the people who actually read the complaint and know that, no matter what, you do not make material misstatements of fact in documents that you submit to a Federal judge.

Finally, when it's pointed out to you that the complaint identifies a specific basis for the numbers used, you announce "It's my business and I know how such projects are run" and
I stand by the small numbers." You demonstrably do not know how this project is deployed and run, and your pseudononymous, fact-free postings do not "stand[] behind your numbers." I could create another Slashdot pseudonym tomorrow and then stand behind a claim that there are actually only 20 million people on the entire Earth. Neither the identify nor the self-declared expertise are verifiable, so there is nothing standing behind those posts.

You are an uninformed blow-hard helicoptering into a dispute that will be resolved in a U.S. Federal Court based upon actual evidence. Yes, your estimate is meaningless, and I don't feel remotely "douchy" for pointing that out.

Re: offered by Germany company?

[ASDFnz]

Keep telling yourself that. You can put it on your CV when you are old enough to get a job;-

* Corrects grammar in internet discussions.

They will give you a medal or something for your important work.

Re: offered by Germany company?

[xevioso]

"...these sorts of stupid mistakes.." rather than "this sort of stupid mistakes". This and sort refer to the singular, while mistakes is plural.